Finding love in all the wrong places

ZARDARI: “You are even more gorgeous than you are on the (inaudible).”

PALIN: “You are so nice. Thank you.”

ZARDARI: “Now I know why the whole of America is crazy about you.”

[A Zardari handler tells the two to shake hands again for the cameras.]

PALIN: “I’m supposed to pose again.”

ZARDARI: “If he’s insisting, I might hug.”

The above does not surprise me. You can only expect this buffoonery from a half educated playboy coming from the feudal class, where women are generally treated as sub-human objects.

But, on a lighter note, I think this may undermine the veracity of the rumour according to which there is a thing going on between Zardari and Sherry Rahman. One would have expected Sherry Rahman to have confronted her man when he was so openly hitting on another woman. But this did not occur.

Getting serious again, there is an interesting interview Zardari gave to MSNBC which can be seen here. Certainly he is no confident and intelligent Musharraf who enjoyed teaching such interviewers a lesson through his wit, though Zardari did manage to make it clear that Pakistan is 100% against terrorists, extremists and more than willing to confront them.

Having said this, a few critical observations:

When asked what message he would convey to the U.S. President upon their meeting, Zardari replied he would “first of all I will thank him for democracy” in Pakistan and that this was part of the “promise” made by George Bush to “our part of the world.” At least he’s honest; this so-called ‘democracy’ movement was heavily supported and facilitated by the Americans. Musharraf was quite falsely and deceptively accused of being an American lackey by his opponents belonging to the PPPP, the PML-N and other groups. Yet we have here an open admission of U.S. intervention and assistance by Zardari.

Zardari also said that his government ‘redefined’ the war on extremism/terrorism as “our war.” This is a blatant lie. Musharraf and the previous government had repeatedly said that this war was “our war” and how it was only in our benefit to fight the terrorists and the extremists. Hence to call it “our war” now is no “redefinition” whatsoever. Zardari went on to say that “may be this was somebody else’s war yesterday but today it is our war.” I do not know what this means. How does this ‘logic’ work? Why yesterday this was not “our war” and today it is “our war”? Whence comes this transformation? How does it work?

As if anticipating my question, Zardari proceeded to seemingly present the logic behind his weird comment by referring to the Marriott blast, saying that 80% of the casualties were Pakistanis and not Americans. Therefore, he continued, this is “our war.” Are we to believe that in the terrorist attacks within Pakistan under Musharraf, 80% of the casualties were Americans and not the Pakistanis and, therefore, it was “not our war” during the Musharraf era? There is simply no sense that can be attached to Zardari’s absurd argument.

The interviewer also repeated the infamous lie that Pakistan received “more than $10 billion” (see this and this) aid from the U.S. over the past 7 years under Musharraf, that Americans believed that Pakistan played a “double game” and that Pakistan did not go after al-Qaeda aggressively. One would have expected an honest, sober minded and a decent Pakistani nationalist President to have set the record straight, irrespective of his/her opposition to Musharraf, namely, that 1) Pakistan did not receive “more than $10 billion” from the U.S as aid; 2) Pakistan had been pursuing the militants aggressively for quite some time. But then again, only a decent, sober minded Pakistani nationalist would have replied as such. Zardari is not such a guy. Zardari gleefully agreed with the interviewer’s distortions, without bothering to ponder over the resultant inevitable negative impression this dishonest reply conveys of Pakistan as an ally to an outsider.

Zardari proceeded to assert that former President Musharraf was allegedly ‘ill-advised‘, ‘short sighted‘ and “not suited for the job.” Me thinks Zardari is looking in the mirror.

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